Too Bad Nevada Republicans Are Under Trump’s Spell

I am disappointed that my fellow Nevadans gave Donald Trump another win in the race for the Republican nomination for president. I understand that voters are fed up with the way the federal government has been functioning (or not) since Barack Obama became president. The economy has not improved much despite assurances from the White House, and many are hurting.

But Trump is not the answer. Exit polls at the caucuses last night showed around half of those calling themselves moderate or very conservative voted for Trump. But Trump is not all that conservative and won’t take up the causes that conservatives care about. Oh, he says things like “We’ll build a wall (on the border) and make Mexico pay for it.” But he has yet to lay out a proposal of how to do that.

Pro-life conservatives care about all the federal tax dollars wasted on Planned Parenthood. (There are about four times as many community health centers in the US than PP facilities. Community health offices provide many more services than PP, so funds given to PP would be more efficiently spent there.) Trump has been complimentary to PP.

Many rural Nevadans (usually conservative) would like to see the federal government give the 87% of the land they control here over to state control. Trump has said he favors keeping federal land under federal control.

Exit polls showed that the majority of those calling themselves evangelical Christians voted for Trump. Apparently they are not voting with the tenets of their faith in mind because Trump does not act like a Christian, although he claims to be. Christians are supposed to be kind (Ephesians 4:32), not consider themselves above others (Romans 12:3), not use crude language (Ephesians 4:29, 5:4, Colossians 3:8) or lie (Ephesians 4:25, (Colossians 3:9). Trump insults anyone who disagrees with him, spends more time talking about how much he’s accomplished than any plans for the country, has used coarse language multiple times and told a number of lies. Only God can judge a person’s heart, but we should be wary when someone’s actions do not line up with what they claim to believe. (“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6: 45)

I could list more ways that Trump is not conservative, but you get the idea. I keep hoping that voters will take some time to actually examine Trump’s plans (or notice the lack of plans) and those of the other candidates. They would see that while his enthusiastic speeches satisfy their emotions, his presidency would not satisfy their ideas of how our government should operate.